After a recent spate of complaints that Windows 7 has been shortening the life span of and possibly damaging batteries in laptops after installing the new operating system, the senior Microsoft executive responsible for Windows 7 spoke out Monday.

In a lengthy post on the Engineering Windows blog, Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Division President Steven Sinofsky told users the problems are most likely due to old or defective batteries.

"To the very best of the collective ecosystem knowledge, Windows 7 is correctly warning [about] batteries that are in fact failing and Windows 7 is neither incorrectly reporting on battery status nor in any way whatsoever causing batteries to reach this state. In every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement," Sinfosky's post said.

Although battery life complaints had been trickling out for months, particularly in regard to netbooks, more users of full-function laptops began complaining on Microsoft's TechNet forums in the past few weeks.

A surge of complaints first caught the media's attention in late January. Users complained about receiving the message "Consider replacing your battery," followed by battery failure, in many cases with older laptops but in some instances with brand-new machines and brand-new batteries.